Punch combo

Whenever I start with a basic one- two, or a jab- cross, I always feel like my cross comes up short, as of my jab increased the distance to the target. To remedy this I started throwing 2-1, or starting with my cross, then popping in the jab. Anyone having this problem? Any risks with throwing this particular way?

I actually am in a relatively square stance. In fact my sensie gets on me in my karate class for standing in such a square stance. I am also turning the back foot. I'll try really turning my hips though, thanks

If he's getting too far away, I suggest, when you jab, you take some ground. Drive off your rear foot, pick your front foot up, and thrust into it. Bringing your rear foot up as you move into the jab so you don't end up looking like some idiot thrusting a spear.

For the cross, the ways of doing it that spring immediately to my mind:

You can drive off of that rear foot again, letting it drive your hip through, and sink down into the front leg. Produces a relatively tight, short cross - loads the front leg.

Or

Take your front leg and swing it back and around the side, swivelling on the new front leg. Good for moving backwards and punching.

Or

Take your back leg and swing it around to the same side as your front leg. Only really useful, IME, if you've just moved weight onto your front leg. Good way to move off line if you've just fired something off your rear hand.

Or

Drive off of the back leg again and step across with the front leg. That gives you a quite sharp angle - useful for if they've gone off to the side and you need to re-orient.

Or

Step through with the back leg so that it becomes the front leg and swivel around that using the new-back-leg to push into it. Very slow, relatively speaking, gains you a lot of ground.

Some of those can gain you a lot of distance, others not so much. Some of them - especially swinging the leg out to the side, can send you backwards, which confuses the **** out of people.

Turn your shoulders into it, too. Turning your hips should make this happen naturally, but when I was first learning I found that making myself turn my shoulders helped get the hips into it, and it gives you those last few inches you're looking for.

I'm not saying you don;t need to fix this problem, but what I will say is that in my limited experience an occasional right-left can squite often catch people relatively unawares in sparring. In a fight with some idiot in a bar, they usualy are more surprised by a left-right.

You should be stepping forward and slightly outward with your lead foot when you're throwing that jab. This will give you the right position to throw the cross. dwkyfm made a video a while back that explained this pretty well. I'll see if I can find it later.